How To Write a Board of Directors Resume and Position Yourself For Board Seats
Michelle Dumas
Nationally Certified Resume Writer ★ Writing Powerful, Branded Resumes & LinkedIn Profiles ★ Helping Clients to Stand Out, Get Noticed & Achieve Career Goals ★ Creator of Distinctive Resume Templates
Executives, whether currently employed or engaged in a job search, can benefit from becoming a member of the board. It’s well worth it for a busy exec to take the time to be involved at this level with his/her own company, another leading firm in the industry, in a different field altogether, or within a nonprofit. There are many reasons for this statement, not least is furthering your career.
Besides the potential for being personally rewarding, being involved at board level in a business or non-profit is evidence of thought leadership, industry knowledge, experience and desirability as an employee/executive. It’s a great professional development step. It’s a key move for building your personal brand and increasing your perceived value to your own firm, to the industry and to those seeking to hire you.
Joining the boards of a different type of business than your core industry can help establish your influence in another. On your resume, board posts indicate high-level decision making skills, strengths in collaboration and governance, management acumen and responsibility. All this raises your profile significantly, strengthening any future job search.
You’ll find that this valuable experience raises your confidence as well. Further, having gained one board seat sets you up for success in getting another if you like. You’ll have been vetted by peers of those who may consider hiring you as CEO, now or in future. Many times, you’ll also earn a fee for serving. Need more convincing? Hopefully not.
How To Write Your Resume for Board Positions
Writing a resume to land a position on a board is much the same as writing any other executive resume. There are those who will disagree with this statement, but these are individuals who tend to expect resumes to all follow a specific, prescribed format.
We recommend a far more customized approach for writing any resume, including those for board of director positions.
As with any executive resume, before you begin writing, it is essential that you first fix your audience in your mind. Now ask yourself: What will be most important to the nominating and governance committees that will be selecting and interviewing candidates to fill vacancies of the board of directors?
This is the same question you must ask yourself before writing any resume. In other words, you must:
What are the factors that are most important for a board seat? The answer will vary according to the company or organization that you are targeting, but some of the most common experiences, areas of expertise, and qualifications that you will want to emphasize include:
When you write your board of directors resume, you should selectively include and emphasize accomplishments and past experience that show how you have demonstrated these traits and skills in action.
Now spend some time defining your differentiating value proposition.?Expertise in “Leading software companies through IPOs, VC and equity fundraising campaigns, and mergers and acquisitions” is far more powerful and compelling than simply stating that you have “15 years of experience in the software industry.”
?An Example Board of Directors Resume:
More Considerations
Do you bring a skill set the board lacks? In this day and age of bad investments and bailouts, having a financial expert on the board is a necessity to lower risk.
Are you experienced in a synergistic industry into which they may want insight?
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Develop a target list of company boards where you might be a good fit and research current members: Are they missing key skills you can offer? Is there a director who may soon retire?
Get out of the box. Do you feel pigeonholed as a creative-only (get on a bank board) If you’re the IT expert who’d like to showcase your other management capabilities, try the local symphony board or a try a media firm. Work for a locally known business? Aim for a nationally respected firm’s board seat.
Put your ear to the ground in your industry for executive search firms that specialize in the industry. Recruiting firms don’t typically make much money by filling board seats. But introducing the perfect candidate for a vacant board seat may be the “in” the recruiter is seeking to develop relationships in a company for future business.
Seek recommendations from your own board, if your board allows executives to serve elsewhere.
Raise your profile by being more active on LinkedIn, joining professional organizations, attending industry conferences or speaking at them.
Get registered. The NACD (National Association of Corporate Directors) has a prospective director registry. You can create a profile by answering a series of questions that can be referred to by boards seeking new directors.
Can you offer board diversity? The Executive Leadership Council helps connect African-American executives with board opportunities. Catalyst maintains a list of women executives. For Hispanic executives, The Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility may serve as a resource.
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